


head in the clouds but my gravity's centered

by queermccoy



Category: IT (Movies - Muschietti), IT - Stephen King
Genre: 1990s, Alternate Universe - College/University, Alternate Universe - No Pennywise (IT), First Dates, M/M, Valentine's Day
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-15
Updated: 2020-02-15
Packaged: 2021-02-28 04:20:22
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,020
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22727530
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/queermccoy/pseuds/queermccoy
Summary: “There’s a situation,” he tells Eddie, who is sitting at his desk surrounded by textbooks and yellow legal pads filled with drawings of complex chemical and Matchbox 20 lyrics.“What is it?” Eddie asks, dropping his pen and turning in his rickety chair. There’s an edge of panic in his tone, like he isn’t there yet but could be in no time at all.“Mike Hanlon asked me to go see a movie!” Richie practically yells, hands in the air. He’s still huffing and puffing from running through campus and up the stairs.“So?” Eddie blinks, “We see movies with Mikey all the time. How is that a situation?”“Because he asked me to go out on Valentine’s Day!” Richie says and falls on his bed dramatically.
Relationships: Mike Hanlon/Richie Tozier
Comments: 10
Kudos: 53
Collections: IT ❀ Valentine's Day Fic Exchange





	head in the clouds but my gravity's centered

**Author's Note:**

  * For [mseg_21](https://archiveofourown.org/users/mseg_21/gifts).



> Happy Valentine's Day!

February 12th, 1997

There’s slush on the sidewalk and it sinks into Richie’s canvas shoes, making his socks soggy. Cars driving too close to the curb fling cold, dirty water at him, soaking his jeans and the limited edition t-shirt he got from his improv group. A hideous squelching noise chases him through the streets. He ignores it, the car, the slush, and the noises coming from his sneakers, running as fast as the ice and his flat bottomed shoes will let him. 

“Fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck,” he mutters, slipping but catching himself before he falls. “Fuck!”

“Where’s the fire?” Someone shouts, and when Richie turns his head he sees Bill Denbrough across the quad, walking with a stack of books between him and Ben Hanscom. They’re smiling and waving at him, but he doesn’t have time to stop. He flails at them and keeps running. He runs down the sidewalk and across the street, through the quad and down a well worn path cutting between the science building and his dorm. 

“Fuck,” he says again, under his breath, rushing through the front door and up the stairs. Normally he would wait for the ancient elevator to take him up to the third floor but he doesn’t have time today. 

Richie slams his way up the stairs, gasping at the top. He holds his hands against his chest and breathes heavily. “F-fuck,” he stutters. 

When he can take in larger, more substantial gulps of air again, Richie unlocks his dorm room’s heavy door and slips inside. 

“There’s a situation,” he tells Eddie, who is sitting at his desk surrounded by textbooks and yellow legal pads filled with drawings of complex chemical and Matchbox 20 lyrics.

“What is it?” Eddie asks, dropping his pen and turning in his rickety chair. There’s an edge of panic in his tone, like he isn’t there yet but could be in no time at all. 

“Mike Hanlon asked me to go see a movie!” Richie practically yells, hands in the air. He’s still huffing and puffing from running through campus and up the stairs. 

“So?” Eddie blinks, “We see movies with Mikey all the time. How is that a situation?” 

“Because he asked me to go out on Valentine’s Day!” Richie says and falls on his bed dramatically. “I think it’s a date?” He can’t see Eddie anymore, but he can feel his bewildered stare. 

Eddie is one of maybe five people who know Richie is gay. Eddie is one of maybe five people who know that Richie is gay in theory, anyway. He’s never actually been gay with someone else before. He sometimes mentions when he thinks an actor is cute, but generally speaking, this is the one thing Richie does not talk about. He’s never talked about boys or made the moves on one. Eddie’s surprise is understandable. He works better when things are predictable and this is a curveball Richie’s just thrown at him with all his might. 

“Well,” Eddie says after a minute, measured and calm, “Do you want it to be a date?” 

“I think so, yeah,” Richie tells the water stain on their ceiling because he doesn’t think he can look at Eddie right now. 

“Do you have a crush on Mikey?” Eddie sounds almost academically curious and it makes Richie feel weirdly better about the whole thing. 

“Yeah, dude,” he says, still talking to the water stain. “He’s so nice? He smiles and it’s like the whole world stops spinning for a minute.” 

Eddie hums. “I don’t think that experience is universal,” he says and that makes Richie finally look over at him. He’s grinning at him like he’s his first place science fair project. Proud. 

“Shut up, jerk,” Richie mumbles, flinging himself back against his sheets with an arm draped over his face. 

“Do you think he has a crush on you?” Eddie asks, like it’s the first time he’s considered anyone liking Richie at all. 

“He asked me out!” If Richie’s tone is defensive, Eddie doesn’t comment on it. He continues, “He’s the fucking secretary of the GSA, it’s not like he doesn’t have options!” 

“Okay,” Eddie says. “What’s the plan?” 

“What do you mean? It’s a date.” 

“Yeah, but are you going to dinner before or after the movie? What movie are you seeing? Are you going to come back here after?” Eddie snaps his fingers. “You should go back to his room; Ben is definitely going to be at Beverly’s.” 

Richie groans and contorts his body until he’s most of the way between his bed and the wall, face first, so he’s a leg and an elbow to Eddie. He groans again for good measure, in case the first one and shoving himself under his bed in the most uncomfortable way possible didn’t get his point across. 

“I can’t go back with him, Eddie!” Richie hisses with his eyes shut tight and a hand over his face, even though the only way Eddie would be able to see him right now is if he has X-ray vision he’s been keeping from Richie since they were babies. “What if he wants to have sex!?”

“Richie, dude,” Eddie says, “What the fuck?” 

Richie replies by shimmying until he’s fully crushed between his bed frame and the wall, face pressed into the dusty floor. 

Eddie is magnanimous and allows him a full minute to suffer like that before he drags the bed away from the wall and Richie’s body falls like a rag doll to the floor, shins smashing against VHS tapes and old textbooks he couldn’t return. 

“I don’t know the plan and I’m too afraid to ask,” Richie admits, this time to a dirty sock next to his nose on the floor instead of the water stain on the ceiling. 

“Rich,” Eddie says, using a tone Richie recognizes from when Eddie talks to stray cats in the street. “What happened?” 

Richie takes a deep breath and wishes he hadn’t because of his sock before he tells Eddie, “We were in the student center after Psych and he asked if I wanted to see a movie on Valentine’s Day and I said, ‘what like a date’ as a joke but he said, ‘yeah, like a date’ then he did that smile, you know the one, and I said, ‘then yes’ and ran away.” 

“You… ran away?” 

“Yeah, Eddie, I ran away. From Mike.” 

“Well, first thing’s first: you gotta talk to Mike.” Eddie declares like it’s the most obvious thing in the world and also something Richie could even do. 

Richie curls away from Eddie completely, pill bugging into the dust bunnies taking up residence in the joint between the wall and the floor. He breathes out and watches them flutter. 

“You’re disgusting,” Eddie says, kicking at Richie’s shoulders and pushing with the heel of his shoe closer to the wall. It doesn’t hurt and it reminds him of when they were young and Eddie would kick his feet in Richie’s face. He loves this little asshole.

“I hate you,” he declares and flops back and pushes his glasses up his face until they’re tangled in his hair. He blinks at Eddie and finds that it is actually better for him if Eddie looks like a blurry specter instead of a person. 

“You can’t go on a date if you don’t know when or where the date is, dumbass,” Eddie says and Richie with his glasses off can admit that he makes a fair point even if glasses wearing Richie would never have been able to admit it. 

“Okay, I’ll talk to him! Persistent motherfucker,” he mutters and he can’t see it but he knows Eddie is preening, because that’s what he does when he wins an argument. 

Richie doesn’t bother to move his bed back into place when he goes to bed that night, instead sleeping in the middle of his and Eddie’s dorm room. He listens to the sound of Eddie flipping through his textbook to lull him to sleep. 

February 13, 1997

Richie runs into Mike the next morning, literally, when he’s rushing into the student center and Mike is walking out. 

“Woah there!” Mike laughs, placing a hand on Richie’s arm to steady him. Richie just about dies at the contact. 

“Hey,” he says. His mouth feels like it’s full of marbles so he tries again, “What’s— what’s up?” 

Mike pats his arm before pulling his hand away and pointing at the ceiling. “The ceiling,” he says and the smile he gives Richie is so cute and proud Richie feels his knees turn to jelly. 

He laughs too hard, for how bad the joke is, but he means it. Mike is the funniest person Richie has ever met and when he giggles at the sound of Richie’s guffaw, he’s also the handsomest person he’s ever met as well. 

“Um,” Richie says when their laughter has died down and they’re just standing in the doorway of the student center, staring at each other. 

“Here,” Mike touches Richie’s arm again, this time to move him off the main path and out of the way of other foot traffic. His hand stays this time, in the groove of his elbow, just resting there. Richie can’t look at it or his brain will short out. 

“So, what’s the plan for V-Day, Mikey?” Richie asks, leaning back against a wall, feeling a little cornered by Mike, off the beaten path and tucked away, but not in a bad way. 

“I was going to tell you,” Mike says, looking hurt. His face is creased with it. Richie thinks he might be the rudest person alive. 

Richie doesn’t say he’s sorry. Instead, he adopts a southern accent and pitches his voice higher than it should reasonably ever be and says, “Well I’ll be, what was a girl to do in such a predicament?” 

Mike grins, and he thinks maybe he’s forgiven when he gets another squeeze from the hand resting in the crook of his elbow. He feels his face burn, but refuses to acknowledge that he’s blushing. Mike has two freckles on his cheek that are laughing at him, but he pays them no mind. 

“That’s fair. It was a surprise for you.” Mike doesn’t ignore the voice work and instead acts like it’s a real part of their conversation. He does that, takes Richie seriously even when he’s hiding behind fourteen layers of irony and bad jokes. It should make him uncomfortable, and it does, but he loves it anyway. Mike hears him when he speaks in a way most people don’t. 

“Are you going to pick me up on a white horse with twenty red roses and a box of imported European chocolates?” Richie asks, fluttering his eyelashes. 

“No, I was thinking we would meet here at four and walk down to the theater together.” Mike runs his hand up Richie’s arm and rests it on his shoulder, cupping the rounded cap. Richie grins to hide the full body shudder creeping up his spine. “Then maybe we could get dinner after?” 

“Yeah,” Richie breathes, “That sounds good.” 

“I have to get to class, but I’ll see you later?” Mike makes eye contact and Richie’s throat gets tight when he sees how brown and soft and warm Mike’s eyes are up close. 

“Yeah,” he chokes, “Yeah, later.” 

Mike runs his hand back down Richie’s arm and touches Richie’s hand before shooting him a sly little grin that makes Richie grateful that he’s already leaning against a wall for support because his knees go a little weak. “Bye,” he calls out, voice quiet and thin. 

Mike winks at him and Richie doesn’t look where’s going when he spins on his heel and walks in the opposite direction. He needs to get away before he bursts into flames completely. 

February 14th, 1997

When Richie wakes up he’s chewing on his fingernails. He wakes up nervous. 

“That’s disgusting,” Eddie says from inside his closet, digging through a pile of clothes. 

“Your mom is disgusting,” Richie mumbles, rubbing his face and running his bitten fingers through his hair. 

“Woah, slow down Robin Williams,” Eddie says, “Don’t waste all that raw humor on me.” 

Richie smiles into the crook of his elbow. “I gotta save it for Mike,” he sighs. He’s putting on a show for Eddie, fluttering his lashes and primping his hair. Even without his glasses on, he knows Eddie is rolling his eyes. 

“What are you going to wear?” 

“What do you mean?” Richie asks. “Clothes, probably.” 

“Clothes definitely!” Eddie squawks, finally tumbling out of his closet and sitting at the end of his bed. 

Richie sits up, shoving his glasses on his face with one hand and stifling a yawn with another. He rolls out of bed and starts collecting his things for a shower. He wants to look nice for Mike, but he’s never really tried to look nice before. He looks at his closet and wonders if an aloha shirt covered in pictures of half naked women is romantic for two gay men. Probably not. 

Instead of deciding right then, Richie heads for the bathroom and takes his shower. He scrubs himself down with a vigor he hasn’t experienced since he was 14 and figured out that the awful smell he couldn’t escape was coming from him. He washes his hair twice for good measure. 

“Here,” Eddie says when he walks back into their room. He hands Richie something small and round on the sides but flat on top. “For your hair. Don’t use too much!” 

“Thanks?” Richie looks at the plastic thing Eddie handed him and uncaps the top. He sticks his nose in it and decides that it smells nice and won’t clash too much with the smell of his deodorant. He sticks his finger into the wet puddy and hates that his fingers come back slick. He wrinkles his nose and wipes it off on his boxers. 

“You’re welcome,” Eddie says. He’s buttoning up his fashionable but functional winter coat, gloved fingers slipping on the buttons. Before he leaves for the day he turns and tells Richie, “Good luck,” and “Please don’t bring him back here, there’s a moldy cup on your desk.” 

Richie lazily salutes the closing door and sighs. He looks at the hair puddy and his closet and sighs again. 

Should he bring Mike flowers? Do boys like flowers? Richie knows he likes flowers, even if no one has ever given them to him before. He remembers Mike saying once that he grew up on a farm… he must like flowers? He likes books. 

Thinking about books reminds him of Bill, who wants to be a writer and has had two girlfriends and half a boyfriend since he and Richie met in freshman year orientation. 

Richie makes an exaggerated “Ah ha!” gesture for no one but himself and picks up the phone Eddie’s mom bought for their room freshman year because Eddie was still 17 when they started college and refused to let him move out without it. He flips through the little notepad they keep by the base and finds Bill’s room number. 

“Pick up, pick up,” he chants into the receiver until someone does pick up on the other end. 

“Denbrough-Uris residence,” Stan says, dry and bored. Richie checks the clock on the wall and curses. Bill is at work right now anyway. 

“Hey, Stan-Lee! What’s cracking?” He says, like he’d wanted Stan the whole time. “Do people bring flowers on first dates?” 

“Did you finally find a man who will put up with you?” Stan asks, their voice just as dry as it was when they answered the phone. It’s just Stan’s way. 

“Let’s say hypothetically that I want him to! Do I bring him flowers?” Richie asks again, desperately. 

Stan sighs and says, “Yeah, Rich, get Mike some damn flowers.” 

Before he can respond, they hang up. Richie mocks the dial tone viciously in retaliation. 

Okay. Flowers for Mike. He can do that. He doesn’t want to think about how Stan knows about him and Mike so he thinks about where to buy flowers instead. 

Richie throws on jeans and a sweatshirt, fists his wallet and his keys, and rushes out the door. He stops at the gas station down the street first, and finds no flowers. He buys a Slim Jim and a Moxie for the road and continues his search, stopping at a legitimate florist’s. The flowers there cost more than one of his textbooks this semester, so he leaves with his Slim Jim dangling from his mouth and the upset stare of the cashier following him out the door. 

Finally, two hours of hunting and searching later, Richie remembers that they sell flowers at Hannaford and runs as fast as he can to the store. The flower display is almost entirely empty save for a single sad bundle of little orange and yellow flowers with so many tiny petals that Richie feels a little crazy looking at them.

He pays for them and another Slim Jim before scooting out of the store with a skip in his step. He asks a mom walking into the store for the time and she tells him it’s almost 3 o’clock. 

With a grin plastered to his face, Richie whistles all the way back to campus, flowers swinging beside him. 

Back in his room, Richie looks in his closet and hums while dramatically flicking through his options. He lands on a satiny button up with a clock pattern he bought at a thrift store in Portland. He thinks it might have been a PJ shirt at one point, but Mike told him he liked it the last time he’d worn it. The fabric makes him feel a little sexy, a little slinky. He poses for himself in the mirror and decides against using Eddie’s magic hair product. His hair looks windswept and especially curly from his flower hunt. 

With ten minutes to spare, Richie leaves his room with his keys, his wallet, and the flowers. He takes his time wandering down the street and up through the quad. He passes Bill and his girlfriend Audra holding hands and laughing and waves jauntily at them. They wave their joined hands back at him. 

Richie comes up around the corner and the first thing he sees, standing in the entryway of the student center, is Mike Hanlon, looking for all the world like a Greek statue. He’s wearing khakis and a soft looking blue sweater under his Carhartt jacket and Richie absolutely wants to climb him like a tree. His fingers tighten around the flowers’ stems. He gulps and it isn’t for show, but he still feels like a parody of himself. 

“Hey,” Mike says, his voice low and warm. Richie shivers and plays it off as the wind. 

“Uh, hi!” He replies, shoving the flowers out in front of him and at Mike’s chest. He blushes, full on blushes, when Mike smiles gratefully and takes them delicately in his hands. 

When Mike touches his nose to the flowers and inhales, Richie feels a piece of his soul leave his body and float above them. He swoons and Mike’s grin seems like the best thing Richie has ever seen. 

“Thank you,” Mike says, genuine and soft as his sweater looks. 

Richie clicks his tongue and shoots Mike a couple of finger guns. He says, “No problem, hot stuff!” in his greaser guy accent. He’s worried being on a date will change how Mike feels about his accents, but it doesn’t seem to because when he laughs it’s with Richie and not at him. 

“You ready to go, sweetcheeks?” Mike asks him, and Richie nods. 

Mike tucks the flowers inside his jacket. He doesn’t hold out his hand, and neither does Mike. Their friends are one thing, and Mike might be out, but they aren’t stupid men. 

Their shoulders brush though, while they walk to the theater, and Richie can feel the stiff lines of Mike’s coat through his sweatshirt. It’s thrilling, makes Richie feel numb all over. 

“I’m glad you agreed to come with me tonight,” Mike says, elbowing him. It’s somehow flirty and sweet at the same time that his elbow smashes into Richie’s side. 

“Really?” He breathes before he can stop himself and say something dumb and distancing. Mike elbows him again. 

“Yeah, really! I like you a lot, Rich.” Richie can’t breathe, he feels like he’s going to pass out. 

“I’m going to pass out,” Richie tells Mike, clutching at his arm. He fake sways on his feet to mask that he actually feels a little light headed. 

Mike pats his shoulder with one giant, warm hand. Richie steadies himself and takes a single deep breath before he says, in a faux casual voice, “I like you too.” 

“Well that makes the next thing I wanted to tell you a lot easier for me to say!” Mike laughs, tucking his hands into the pockets of his jacket. He seems bashful, for the first time since this whole thing started. 

“I was going to ask you after the movie, at dinner, if you had a good time at the movie,” Mike rambles, not looking at Richie. 

“Ask me what?” Richie worries at his fingernails, nervous like he was when he woke up this morning. 

“Do you— I mean, would you like to…” Mike sighs and bites his lip. He looks lost, but Richie doesn’t know what he’s asking, so he can’t help him get there. “Be my boyfriend?” 

Richie blinks. He blinks again. He blinks a third time and takes a deep breath, replaying the moment in his mind to make sure he heard Mike correctly. Boyfriend. Mike wants him to be his boyfriend. Him. 

A smile stretches across Richie’s face and he can feel his shoulders relax. He realizes Mike is still waiting for an answer, so he slips into his greaser voice again and says, like he’s talking around a cigarette, “You wanna go steady with me, hot stuff?” 

Mike giggles, hiding his face in his shoulder. Richie did that. Richie is doing that. Richie makes Mike giddy and happy and Mike wants to date him. Him! 

“I do,” Mike says. “I do want to date you.” 

“Nice,” Richie replies, nodding. “Very cool of you.” 

Richie sticks his hands in his pockets of his sweatshirt, to match Mike’s hands in his own jacket pockets. Mike gestures with his elbow, wordlessly asking if they should keep walking. Richie nods and they grin at each other as they walk. Richie keeps tripping, looking at Mike more than the ground he’s walking on. 

At the theater, it’s packed enough that no one notices them there with each other. They each buy their own ticket to see _Fools Rush In_ , but Mike buys their shared popcorn. 

“Is this a rom-com?” Richie asks, sliding his sweatshirt off and settling into his seat next to Mike. They’re tucked away in the back corner, far away from everyone else in the theater. Mike drapes his jacket over their laps, his flowers in his own lap and hidden, and holds his hand out for Richie to grab under the stiff tan canvas. He does, grab it, and loves how Mike’s skin feels under his fingers. 

“I think so,” Mike says. “I actually don’t know anything about it. I just wanted to see something with you.” 

Richie blushes again, squeezing Mike’s hand hard. “Great,” he whispers, because the lights are dimming around them. “This is perfect.” 

“I’m glad you think so,” Mike whispers back, directly into Richie’s ear. He squeezes Mike’s hand again so he knows he liked it. 

Richie feels like his shirt, slippery and warm to the touch. He feels like his hand, held in Mike’s. He feels solid and present and he doesn’t know why he was so panicked when he talked about this with Eddie two days ago. He knows why, but it doesn’t feel like it matters now, in the low light of the theater. 

Richie looks over at Mike and sees him looking back. It’s just… really nice.


End file.
